BU suspending course offerings at Knowlton campus

At the end of the current semester, the satellite campus of Bishop’s University in Knowlton, focusing mainly on fine arts, will suspend its offerings indefinitely.

The building where the courses were taking place has been up for sale since July.

According to Miles Turnbull, Vice-principal Academic at BU, the Knowlton building would require a $170,000 renovation to be up to code and safely house students.

Rather that draw from the operational budget, Turnbull said BU made the decision to focus on optimizing resources on the main campus.

BU bought the property on Knowlton Road in 2003, and had done a number of repairs over the years.

Following an inspection this past March, Turnbull said the university learned the building was in need of major renovations.

“It’s not government funded,” Turnbull explained. While there is support available for campus renovations, Turnbull said that BU, in theory, has too much building space in relation to its student population. For that reason, the buildings and grounds envelope of available funding would not cover the Knowlton building.

The other option for BU would be to draw from the operational budget in order to keep the campus open.

Turnbull said the BU continuing education committee met in September to evaluate the situation. Following several consultations, including two meetings with the municipality, the committee made the recommendation to senate to suspend the continuing education programming at the Knowlton campus.

The students currently enrolled in courses at the campus received email notification on Sept. 23.

There are currently five courses running, with an average of 14 students in each.

Last winter the campus had 87 students attending courses in Knowlton, but Turnbull was unaware of the exact number this semester.

Among the students, Turnbull said 15 were in various stages of completing a degree and one student was pursuing a certificate.

He said the university is willing to work with those students and be as flexible as possible to help them complete their studies.

Turnbull pointed out that half of the 16 students were more than halfway through a program; he also said that in order to complete their studies, they would have to at some point make their way to the main BU campus since not all of the required courses were available in Knowlton.

“We’re not happy about this,” Turnbull said, “We’re making hard decisions based on our future sustainability.”

As soon as the building went up for sale, Turnbull said the university started receiving letters from Knowlton area residents. A petition was also recently launched opposing the sale of the building and closure of the campus, making a plea to BU to continue making courses and programs available in the area.

By press time, the petition had close to 300 signatures.

Not wanting to offer false hope, Turnbull said BU deliberately used the word suspend rather than terminate, regarding the offerings in Knowlton.

“We will continue to reflect,” he said. If there were a model that made sense and didn’t drain efforts and resources on the main campus, Turnbull said restarting programs in Knowlton was not out of the question.

Turnbull alluded to the possibility of developing a partnership with the municipality, but said there has been no official expression of interest at this point.